At a time when BJP-led NDA government is opening up its key sectors to foreign direct investment, a top official of its think tank NITI Aayog said that the country would not grow on the back of FDI for a very long time.
“India cannot grow on the back of FDI for very long. It will grow on the back of domestic market and government is creating an enabling environment to do so,” Aayog’s CEO Amitabh Kant said at the CII Annual session on Monday.
According to Kant, India should be clear that it needs to have rigorous approach to manufacturing through exports.
“Make for India is absurd. Challenge for India is to look at right size and scale and think of global markets to drive its growth as was done by China,” Kant said. Kant was speaking at the CII session on “Global slowdown — implications for the world’s fastest growing economy.
The idea was backed by Jamshyd N Godrej, past president of CII and CMD of Godgrej & Boyce Manufacturing. “India should not go back to the old idea of making everything for India,” he said.
Besides manufacturing, Kant feels it is rapid and planned urbanisation that will drive growth in the country. “Urbanisation will be a very critical angle of growth. Currently india has haphazard and very poor level of urbanisation. Indian cities will have to drive India’s GDP growth,” he said.
Kant said government is trying to dismantle 68 years of legacy and in three-four years things will change radically, enabling India to fly in the global growth.
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